


memories of a massacre;

by bloodynargles



Series: adventures in canon; [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: All siblings featured, Althrael Lavellan - Freeform, Angst, Clan Lavellan Dies, Dragon Age Quest: Protect Clan Lavellan, F/F, F/M, Fira Lavellan, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Lavellan siblings, M/M, Major Original Character(s), Oleander Lavellan, Oneshot collection, Original Character Death(s), POV Lavellan, Same Subject, different POVs, im sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 11:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7265905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodynargles/pseuds/bloodynargles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Separated, they were all apart and there was no way of laying eyes on each other again. No sibling laughter as Oleander falls face first into mud, or the collective hum of concentration as her mage siblings study, a small flame dancing in the air as the sky dimmed above, her silent adoration of her brother and sister alight within her eyes. There was a strong chance that Althrael was dead, the humans who had found her, taken her prisoner, had murdered her in her sleep, the muffled screams of an elf once again lost beneath a pillow and ignored in human ears. A legitimate chance that Oleander had been hunted down and killed without hesitation, not getting the chance to defend himself, a missed chance as he'd messed up casting a spell, the fire that was woven into his blood failing him when he needed it the most. And herself, Fira. Did it matter? Without her siblings to keep her alive, she was dead, too. </p><p>They were all dead. Clan Lavellan was gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a brother lost;

**Author's Note:**

> dream // imagine dragons.

The sun sets over the top of the smooth faced cliff, his worn staff leaned against a nearby tree, years of humans crossing the same trail he makes his makeshift camp on having worn the ground around him and absently he wonders if his own ancestors walked here once, too. It makes him want to laugh, almost. Althrael would know. His sister knew everything and he knew nothing. Watched her set off that night and never got to say goodbye, her pack bouncing on her back as her figure retreated into the darkness. Its a broken sound, the one that comes from his chest. He could almost forget that she was dead, like the rest of them – she had to be. The humans that captured her, they killed her and he had no way of recovering her, no way of sending her to the gods properly. No goodbye, just a spirit lingering at the back of his mind, pulling and pulling but fading away and Oleander doesn't quite know what to do, now. Try to mend the hole their deaths left behind? Perhaps set out to find Fira, their older sister was on a hunt at the time of the attack – he doesn't know if its worth it. He doesn't know if he can stomach the sight of his own protector left to bleed out on the forest floor, carefully braided hair tangled and matted with blood, the image in his mind of his strong, capable sister – the warrior swinging a sword as her dark hair flows in the wind behind her, the light glinting off of her patchwork but sturdy armour, pointed ears peaking out from behind her long hair like the villains in the human children's tales. That's what they were – a _pest_. To be exterminated.

Well, they were.

They were all gone and his voice fails him, breaks as he tries to hum the lullaby the Keeper used to, the image of blood splattered against aravels and the sound of distant screams as he ran, watching the ground, his hands, his feet going numb after a while, after the sounds had faded – from the end or from distance, he didn't know for lack of attention, lack of anything but fear. He'd stopped, _collapsed_ , dropped to his knees beside a tree he didn't recognise, looking up finally into the green green blur of a forest he didn't know, staff falling to the ground as his wails sounded out into the setting sun. He's not sure when his common sense came back, he doesn't know how long he wandered for, broken and praying that they weren't all.. gone. They were. He didn't need to go back to know that.

 

He wishes his sisters didn't have to die in a drawn out human ritual of pain, he wishes that the innocence of Althrael didn't have to die with her, that the fierce look in Fira's eyes wouldn't fade from his memory like the bright light of his last memory of their mamae. A face he couldn't quite place and a voice he could never understand, words in common tongue but they never made any _sense_. It didn't anger him, anymore, how could it? He was alone, he didn't have anyone to complain to, to roll their eyes at his snarky comments or groan at his stupid, careless jokes. It was all a dream, now. A past to forget along with the dying eyes of Rivalen, his last words falling from his mouth – _run, run. Please run and don't look back._ But he wouldn't. Forget. Forget that, or the way Ala's freckles splattered across her face in the sunlight, eyes alight and full of life, the way Fira's laugh would light up a room, even if it was rare, but that made all the more _special_. It was home.

Home was gone, and he was desire's dream.

 

A huff leaves his nose as he sinks back down to perhaps the only soft ground on the mountain he'd climbed up on top of, feet sore from over walking, muscles tired from a day without rest, his hand cramping from clutching his staff so tightly, silently begging his thoughts, his _memories_ of a massacre to not strike him until sleep took over, until the fade claimed him as its own and he was at the mercy of the wilderness that haunted this rocky outcrop.

Faintly he wonders if anything would get him in the night as he falls into the depths of unconscious hell that sleep offered on a golden gilded plate. Tear him to pieces like the breach had the sky.


	2. a sister bitter;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Althrael knew her own people wouldn't leave others out to die when they had done nothing but choose to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> death of a king // approaching nirvana

Its on their faces as she looks around the room. _The death of clan Lavellan was tragic, but there are bigger things to focus on_. Bigger things to base your world around, the hole in the sky or the people dying from starvation because the demons falling from the rifts, tearing themselves into this world from the next, are roaming around where they don't belong. Hunters too afraid to go out into the countryside in stark daylight for fear of dying with meat to go spoiled in the sunlight as a rage demon shimmers above them, its orange glow distinctive and fear inducing. The children falling prey to the cold that rolls in at night, frost taking over their small bodies, intertwining itself with their bones, the chills rattling down their backs violent but the ice is kind, in a way, leaving them to sleep their lives away, no pain getting through to their sweet dreams of better times. She could pretend that they weren't close to home, that those people, those _human_ people didn't deserve her care, her complete attention. She could pretend that she wasn't their light in the darkness – but all that would accomplish was _nothing_. Those people needed to believe in something, anything – even their false maker – they needed it to survive and she couldn't take their lives for granted because they believed in something different, or their ears were different. Her clan would never allow for that to happen, they wouldn't condone letting innocent people starve and die to unknown forces, even if they were of a different race.

Althrael knew her _own_ people wouldn't leave others out to die when they had done nothing but choose to _live_.

 

So she trudges down muddy pathways in the dark, wet night, the moons high in the skies above and the relentless rain pelting down onto her shoulders, sticking her underclothes to her skin. Crestwood was a dreary place in its current state, the downpour bleeding into everything, people sleeping on wet sheets because they couldn't stop the rain from dripping in through the gaps in the roof. The drip, drip, dripping of water into a forged vessel a distinctive sound in one of the many houses they get invited into to shelter from the cold, to hear of that family's hardships, or how the village's usual traders wont come around anymore, for fear of the demons or any other terror that stalks people travelling along the gravel roads that litter Ferelden. There's one woman, an elf, who wants to join the Wardens. She speaks of their heroics with wide eyes and passion in her voice, and somewhere it reminds her of herself, before. Eyes alight and full of innocence, just wanting to _be_ someone – Althrael encourages her, even if the others disagree under the covered candlelight flickering in the storm. Wanting to belong and _belonging_ were two different things, and why should she deny someone that right to know who they were and be who they wanted to be. Maybe not a shining hero, but a heroine to someone, to herself, to her comrades – that's all that mattered.

 

Hawke's red hair is glistening, sticking to her face but she shoves it back, the rogue huffing slightly as she leads them to her associate within the wardens, his name is Stroud and his moustache could almost make Dorian envious, that is, if he had a penchant for bushy, manly man facial hair. Somehow, she almost knows he doesn't.

A false calling worries her, worries Leliana when she hears, the usual stone cold expression breaking like stale bread across a hunter's knee, her inner emotions falling prey and she forgets herself in a moment, fear almost flickering across her face before her muscles remember, though her voice shakes slightly and Althrael remembers how she spoke of Evelyn, the Warden Commander of Ferelden, the one who assisted Queen Noelle and the King in the Fifth Blight. She wants to reach out to her advisor but something stops her, perhaps the sudden influx of swalking birds above or the way she's seen the other woman slide out of gestures before, the harsh expression on her face returning before Ala has a moment to react and she's dismissed before she can express anything else on the matter.

 

She curls up to sleep that night, the sinking feeling of a proper bed almost uncomfortable as she yearns for the worn blankets her clan carried with them from site to site, the smell of home wafting in from her place within old elvhen ruins or green grassy fields, where the early morning giggles of children washing and playing before breakfast floated to her ears and Oleander bounded up to her small cot, sprouting something, probably nonsense about old curses and how the hunters had brought back something that looked like bear but he's almost sure it was magically mutated, because, that's what they must eat in the likes of Tevinter, no?

Memories of a brother she'd never lay eyes on again come rushing back and the sobs no longer wrack her chest, she's not even sure they'll come, now. Months of days that felt like years had gone by and she no longer wailed the night away, wishing and praying to the creators for her siblings to emerge from the snowy mountains that surrounded Skyhold. Her common sense had kicked in, she knew they wouldn't know where to go, even if they did live, the fear from running from a massacre having numbed by now, the basic instincts of hunting and _surviving_ taking hold, leaving less room for thoughtful things like wishing they were home, or praying to the gods they once thanked for their meals. Perhaps their sense of their once beloved creators had faded, the bitter reminder that their _gods_ didn't save the clan, didn't save anyone. Perhaps they wondered if those gods were even gods at all. Just powerful mages that their people had looked to for hope, had they ever actually cared?

 

The Keeper wouldn't condone such questions of their Creators. But the Keeper was dead, and their _Creators_ didn't save anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> smol is bitter and hopeless.

**Author's Note:**

> fira's description isn't even in her chapter? remarkable.


End file.
